


Like Your Favorite Record

by Flames_and_Jade



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Anal Sex, Bottom!Pete, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, M/M, Music stuff, Oral Sex, Record Stores, but kinda a band, it's up to you, otp prompt, snarky!Patrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 06:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15746055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flames_and_Jade/pseuds/Flames_and_Jade
Summary: Music is a special thing and record stores are hallowed spaces, according to Patrick. So when a boy with pretty eyes comes in on a rainy Saturday...the rest is history.





	Like Your Favorite Record

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SnitchesAndTalkers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnitchesAndTalkers/gifts).



> This is just a little bit of fluff for the most wonderful @Snitchesandtalker's birthday. She asked for something about a record store and boys falling in love and...something like that. I fully admit I can't remember completely, but I hope that this is at least a tiny bit enjoyable for you, my dear friend!!
> 
> Also, endless thanks and praise to @Laudanumcafe for her assistance in musical lore and album influences. I couldn't have done it without you, dearest!

~2003~

 

 

There was something so comforting about working in a niche market, he decided.

 

Shopping has been a popular pastime since...well, probably since Washington sailed across the Potomac. Malls only made it _more_ of a professional sport, long endurance rather than explosive bursts generally, and that brought with it the worst species of all: the _browser_. The casual individual who had no real interest in _buying_ anything nor any actual _knowledge_ about what they were looking at. Malls tended to attract those types of people--women with huge purses, boys in a pack with snapbacks and wallets hanging from chains. They would move about, like pack animals almost, and graze on whatever the consumer Mecca told them they would be delighted to look at today.

 

Record stores were decidedly _not_ part of that cesspool of consumerism. Firstly, because no self-respecting record store would be caught dead in a _mall_. The closest thing to that would be a placement on the end of a shitty strip mall, next to a laundromat and a Chinese takeout place that gave you two free egg rolls if you bought $25 worth of food. Secondly, because of the aforementioned physical positioning criteria, you had to _decide_ to go to a record store. You had to say to yourself _oh man, you know what I’m gonna do? Turn into that strip mall that would otherwise never pique my interest and go look at some vinyl_. It was a deliberate decision, not a tack-on to an endless expanse of Sears, Hot Topic, and Dress Barn. Thirdly, because they attracted people who loved music for the simple act of loving it, in all its incarnations and mediums. The types of people who got excited over finding a pressing they hadn’t seen before, who would talk for hours about why CD’s just would never be the same, about editions and record players and, occasionally, the other detritus that made up the musical world.

 

Record stores were temples to music. Sure, you could get that record off Ebay for probably a couple bucks cheaper when you didn’t factor in shipping, but it wasn’t the same. Record stores were about the hunt, about the thrill of the _finding_. Like you were a benevolent ruler plucking a sleeve from among hundreds, elevating it, making it special.

 

Of course, if you had asked Patrick any of this, he couldn’t have quite _said_ it that prettily. But he definitely thought those types of thoughts as he dusted and took inventory, as he restocked and vacuumed and generally did all the things that it took to keep a record store looking...well, like a record store.

 

Someday he’d love to work at a place like Reckless Records. But for now, that was just too far across town from his little collegiate bubble to entertain as possible, and besides, Second Spin had something most other record stores didn’t: gear.

 

A modest selection of guitars, amps, pedals, a bass or two, a keyboard and a single drum set took up the back wall of the store, and it was his daily delight to keep them in working order. He started with the bass first--they were easiest to tune. The guitars next because then he had an excuse to play a few things, just to be sure he had done a good job. It was really a quality-control measure, really, entirely necessarily. The rest just required dusting, beyond when some over-enthusiastic idiot would bang too hard on the drum kit and he had to rebalance it. But that wasn’t too often.

 

It was really the best job he could imagine, even though he was under no illusion that the manager kept him for any reason other than the fact that he was (a) obviously obsessed with music and (b) knew how to tune and maintain the instruments. He thought it was a good deal for all involved, really.

 

So he whiled away weekends and two nights a week between the four walls of Second Spin and revelled in the delight of being able to pick what to put on the turntable next. It was an eclectic selection, to be sure, but he liked to think of it as a tour of the senses, musical calisthenics perhaps. To the uninitiated to the sacred hallows of Music, it might sound like he jumped between genres and artists like someone trying to dribble while having a seizure, but it didn’t bother him. _He_ knew why he transitioned from the Beatles to Bobby Darin to Johnny Cash to Elvis Costello to Louis Armstrong to Nirvana and back again.

 

One rainy afternoon he was grumbling under his breath as he put back the huge stack of records that some bunch of idiot teens had thought they would buy, pondered endlessly at the register, and then decided not to purchase. _Idiots_ , he thought...though his mood was not improved by the fact that they had wanted to buy mostly strange psychedelic funk that he actually liked, but they hadn’t seemed to want to talk about it at all with him. _Where’s the fun in that_ , he grumbled as he put back a random copy of _Thriller_ and heard the bell over the door tinkle. He didn’t look up--who really greeted _every_ ponderer of music whenever one ambled in?--but finished putting back the last few sleeves.

 

He saw out of the corner of his eye a striped purple and black hoodie, the tightest jeans in history, and a pair of very worn and rather wet chucks. Setting the last one away, he straightened and addressed the person hunched over the box of $1 vinyls under the pop section. “If you need anything just let me know, yeah?” The person’s head nodded silently--he guessed it was a dude by the lack of boobs but hey, you never know with pants like that--and he shrugged as their black-chipped nails flicked over sleeve after sleeve.

 

“Oh hey!” He was at the end of the row when the guy--he now could unequivocally state it was in fact a dude--threw his head up and looked at Patrick with the _prettiest_ kohl-rimmed eyes he’d ever seen. “Do you have _Through Being Cool_?”

 

“Saves the Day?” Patrick hazarded a hopeful guess as his heart began beating a million miles a minute and he honestly couldn’t have said if it was because of the way the guy’s eyes were the most amazing shade of deep, soulful brown or if it was because _nobody_ had ever come in and asked that question.

 

“Yeah! You know them? They’re like, seriously my favorite _ever_. I mean, okay, that’s not really true. I’m pretty sure my favorite is _Use Your Illusion II_ Metallica, but like...Bowie and Saves the Day are also the greatest so--”

 

Words flew out of Patrick’s mouth, something extolling Bowie or trashing Axl Rose and for the life of him he never could quite remember which it was (or if it was both) when he looked back on the moment that he met his boyfriend.

 

~2005~

 

“No but seriously...think about it.” Pete was sitting on his desk char (that he usually just used for the exalted purpose of holding dubiously-clean laundry) looking at Patrick with passion in his eyes and the hand-waving eloquence of the steadfast. “You can totally hear a little bit of _Raw Power_ in The Smiths—it’s totally a thing!”

 

“Sure, because Bowie produced that album. But it’s not—“

 

“You just don’t want to be wrong about something that has anything to do with music, admit it.” Pete fired back grinning as he fiddled with one of those weird multicolor pens. Patrick wasn’t even sure why he had it because he hated the way the ink wasn’t dark on the page, but Pete just kept clicking the little tabs down, displaying first green, then red, then blue and so on as he argued.

 

“Okay, first of all if there’s something I’d be wrong about it _sure_ isn’t music. Second, _sure_ but you can hear influences all over the place no matter what so you could say that about anything. I—“

 

“You’re hot when you’re angry, you know that right?” Pete stood and walked across the threadbare carpet to stand right in front of Patrick’s knees, giving him a smile that had a salacious hint.

 

 _“_ Oh, don’t _even_ —“ Patrick grumbled but Pete just grinned and pushed him down, scattering clothes and papers and whatever else was crowding the bed to the floor as he clambered on top of his boyfriend.

 

“I _will_ even.” He laughed, settling down on Patrick’s hips and rolling his own. “Don’t worry, you can keep trying to convince me.” And with that he tucked his head down to press a line of kisses to Patrick’s neck all the while grinding his hips down, running the length of his denim-covered cock against Patrick and smiling to himself when he grew harder with each movement.

 

“You are not going to win that easy, fuckface, I know what you’re trying to do and I am totally not falling for it. The _only_ song that has _any_ resemblance on that album is “Gimmie Danger” and _fuck—“_ Patrick’s adamant argument was cut off as Pete slid down his body and pushed away his sweatpants, sucking his now-hard cock down and letting the silken-smoothness of the head nudge against the back of his throat. He smirked as best as he could as he bobbed and sucked and Patrick continued to try to argue between gasps. “I— _sssssss_ —I think it’s more likely that— _fuck babe so good, I—_ no, dammit l, Bowie’s mix is really, it shows—“ He gave up with a whine as Pete took him deeply, as much as he could fit and flitted his fingers across Patrick’s balls, the skin paper-thin and velvet-soft. Hands calloused from guitar picking slid into his hair as he pulled off with a final, heroic swirl of his tongue to climb back up, holding himself up on his knees just above Patrick’s hips and looking down with a grin.

 

“A for effort.” He snarked as he grabbed Patrick’s hand and pulled it to his ass-cheek, pushing it towards the crease between and waiting for the inevitable explosion. “Touch me, come on.”

 

Patrick glared at him but the effect was significantly lowered by (a) his heaving chest, (b) the way his cock strained up red and wanting between Pete’s legs, and (c) the fact that he wasn’t sprawled on the floor holding his busted balls or a black eye for his teasing. But his hand dipped obediently into the nightstand for the lube as his fingers caressed the gentle curve of Pete’s ass, dipping closer and closer to the spot that mattered. He found it just as he was pulling the lube out, so it fell to the ground with a satisfying _thunk_ when his fingers encountered the smooth glass buried between Pete’s cheeks. “Are you—is that a—“

 

“A plug?” Pete gave him a look as he reached down to grab the lube from where he had dropped it to the floor in his sudden interest. “Sure is. Mad skills of observation you got there, Mr. Music.”

 

Patrick still shot him a glare for that, but his mind seemed to have _finally_ switched from musical influences to fucking, much to Pete’s delight. He pulled his ass closer so his fingers could gently circle the glass edge and Pete tried not to shake with the sensation. Quick as a wink, Patrick had pushed him over and Pete was pretty sure there was a capo under his shoulder but that was the least of his interests when Patrick scooted down to take his cock in his mouth with a growl.

 

“ _Fuckkkkk.”_ He hissed out, already angling his hips as Patrick worked him over, hungry and none-too-gentle as he worked the plug and Pete inwardly congratulated himself on an awesome idea. The feeling built, built, built as Patrick worked it against that spot deep inside him, as his tongue lapped against that spot just under the head of his cock that made fire shoot through his veins. It was so much…so good, so good, _too good_. “Babe, babe shit I’m gonna—I—“

 

But Patrick just looked up at him and nodded, just an infinitesimal tilt of the head in permission and Pete couldn’t help but gasp out something that _may_ have been about how perfect he looked with a mouth full of cock. But then thoughts dissolved into light exploding behind his eyelids as Patrick angled the plug _just right_ and Pete let go…body locking up as his toes curled and his hands tightened around a fistful of sheets and he _came_ with a howl.

 

 _And then_.

 

And then Patrick was slipping inside, somehow finding the space between heartbeats to pull the plug free and push in, gently and carefully unlike his earlier ravaging. Pete gasped as his eyes flew open to Patrick’s furrowed brow and his teeth biting into that plush lower lip that he had endless dirty thoughts about. The tingling was still in his toes, in his hands and between his hipbones as Patrick pushed in and Pete felt like he was exploding, imploding, expanding in the most perfect way. His dick gave a heroic throb as Patrick slid across that spot that had made him see galaxies and starlight and he gasped and shook.

 

“So pretty, so fuckin’ pretty like this and all mine—“ Patrick gasped as he crashed their mouths together and whined high in the back of his throat as he fucked into Pete with jerky, short little thrusts that kept him deep inside. Never receding, never pulling out all the way and Pete wished he could come a second time from this, from the shocked-sore feeling of pleasure cycling through obliterated circuits. But instead he just gasped into Patrick’s mouth and rode the wave with him, twitching as the movement caught his cock, slick and spent between them.

 

With a cry, Patrick thrust a final time and cried out a muffled rejoinder that sounded like Pete’s name with a healthy smattering of _fuckshitgod_ surrounding it. Pete’s cock gave a final twitch at that before Patrick was tumbling down in a tangle of spit and come and sweat…and it was the best thing he could have imagined.

 

“You’re still wrong, by the way.” Patrick mumbled much later, after they had used something to clean up and pulled the throw blanket covered in batman comics over their sweat-misted skin. Pete just laughed silently into the plush softness of Patrick’s chest and rolled over, body protesting just as loudly as Patrick as he climbed to his feet and shuffled through the box of records. Finding it, he settled _The Queen Is Dead_ onto the table and placed the needle down gently before crawling back to Patrick sleepy-scowling at him even as he opened his arms.

 

“Listen to it again.”

 

~2017~

 

Pushing the door open and smiling at the bell tinkling above it just as it always had, Patrick took a deep breath of the smell of vinyl and old carpet. Tonya skipped in behind him with her pink and turquoise tutu swishing against the doorframe and her hand firmly in Pete’s.

 

“Wowwww.” She breathed as she looked around and Patrick couldn’t help but smile just a little wider as Pete gave him a look. Second Spin looked just the same—instruments in one corner, and endless lines of vinyl standing silent sentry to the passage of time. “Do they have Bubble Guppies?” She asked excitedly and Patrick rolled his eyes at the kid behind the counter who snorted under his purple hair.

 

“No baby, they don’t have tv stuff. This is just music here.”

 

“Oh.” She gave the store another quizzical look. “Do they have _Frozen?”_

 

 _“_ Let’s go see!” Pete pulled her towards the stacks and Patrick smiled at the two of them—thick as thieves as always. Today Tonya’s hair was done up in twisted pigtails with plastic barrettes at the ends and her ebony skin glowed against the pink of her shirt. Patrick hid a smile as Pete showed her _the right way_ to look through records and she copied him with rapt attention.

 

“Papa? Why did we come to this store?” She asked as he came to stand next to them, eyes catching as they always would on their own band’s records but he didn’t look—it didn’t matter.

 

“Because, pumpkin. _This_ is where I met your daddy a long time ago.”

 

Her eyes widened as she looked at the store anew, knowing the story— _The Papa and Daddy Lover Story_ as she called it whenever she demanded it be told. Pete looked up at him with something gentle in his eyes and a soft smile on his lips that Patrick was sure was reflected back on his own face, and he once again thanked the dearly departed spirit of David Bowie that Pete had walked into the store that day.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Favorite Record" on "American Beauty/American Psycho"


End file.
